What is the Network First Manifesto?
The Network First Manifesto is a global community exploring a network-first approach to work, organizations, and society. It brings together people who believe that relationships, collaboration, and human networks are becoming increasingly important in shaping how we organize and create value.
What does “Network First” mean?
Network First means looking at organizations and communities through the relationships between people, rather than starting with formal structures, roles, or hierarchies. It recognizes that much of how work actually happens depends on networks of trust, knowledge, support, and collaboration.
It does not mean eliminating hierarchy. Hierarchies and networks can coexist. The goal is to become more intentional about how we cultivate and navigate the human connections through which ideas, information, and opportunities flow.
Why does Network First matter now?
AI is rapidly changing the economics of knowledge and expertise. As access to information and intelligence becomes increasingly abundant, the ability to build trusted relationships, mobilize communities, and collaborate across boundaries becomes an increasingly important source of differentiation.
Network First explores what this shift means for individuals, organizations, and society.
Is the Network First Manifesto an organization?
Not in the traditional sense. The Network First Manifesto is designed as a decentralized community rather than a conventional organization with a centralized hierarchy.
Members can initiate projects, experiments, conversations, and local activities around shared interests while remaining connected through a common set of principles.
Who can join?
Anyone who is genuinely interested in exploring network-first ways of working is welcome to join. The community includes practitioners, researchers, executives, entrepreneurs, consultants, academics, technologists, and others interested in the future of organizations and human collaboration.
You do not need to be an expert in networks or organizational design.
Is it free to join?
Yes. Joining the Network First Manifesto community is free.
What happens after I join?
You become part of a broader community of people exploring and experimenting with Network First principles. Depending on your interests, you can participate in community conversations, Network Convergences, projects, local chapters, pilots, research, and other initiatives emerging from the network.
There is no expectation that every member participates in everything. Engagement is voluntary.
What are Network Convergences?
Network Convergences are recurring community gatherings where members connect, exchange ideas, explore emerging questions, and discuss initiatives within the ecosystem.
They also provide a space for the network to collectively consider proposals that affect the broader community.
How are decisions made?
The community operates with a simple governance structure designed to enable decentralized action while maintaining alignment across the broader network.
Any member can propose a new project and bring the proposal to one of the monthly Network Convergences for community ratification. Once a project is ratified, decision-making moves to the project level.
From that point forward, each project operates independently, with its own approach to decision-making agreed upon by the Project Catalyst and participating team members. This allows projects to remain autonomous and adaptable while staying connected to the principles and broader community of the Network First Manifesto.
Can I start a Network First project?
Yes. Network First is designed to encourage member-led experimentation.
If you see an opportunity to explore an idea, conduct research, organize a community, launch a pilot, or create something aligned with the Manifesto, you are encouraged to connect with others who share that interest and develop it together.
Projects do not need to originate from a central leadership team.
What is a Catalyst?
A Catalyst is a community member who proposes a project, brings the proposal to a monthly Network Convergence for ratification, and, once approved, takes responsibility for leading the project.
The role is not based on traditional management or hierarchical authority. Instead, the Catalyst helps activate the initiative, brings together interested members, and works with the project team to determine how the project will operate and how decisions will be made.
Catalysts provide direction and continuity while preserving the autonomy and voluntary participation of the people involved.
Are there local Network First communities?
Yes. Local chapters can emerge when members want to build stronger connections within a particular geography.
These communities provide opportunities to translate Network First principles into local relationships, gatherings, experiments, and collaborations while remaining connected to the wider global network.
What are Network First Pilots?
Network First Pilots are practical experiments that explore how Network First principles can be applied within real organizations and communities.
Rather than treating the Manifesto only as a set of ideas, pilots create opportunities to learn from practice, document what works, and share those insights with the wider community.
Is Network First against hierarchy?
No. Network First is not about replacing hierarchy with decentralized networks.
Networks are viewed as the common substrate that powers both centralized and decentralized organizations. In every organization, people and the relationships between them form the underlying system through which information, trust, influence, support, and work actually flow.
Hierarchies and decentralized structures are therefore different ways of organizing the same relational substrate. Each can be useful depending on the context. More open networks can support discovery, learning, and emergence, while more centralized structures can provide focus, coordination, and execution.
Network First is about understanding this underlying network and designing organizational structures more intentionally around how people actually connect and collaborate
Is this related to Organizational Network Analysis (ONA)?
The two are related, but they are not the same thing.
Organizational Network Analysis is a methodology for understanding patterns of relationships and collaboration within organizations. Network First is a broader philosophy and community exploring what it means to place human connection and collaborative freedom at the center of how we think about work, organizations, and collaboration.
ONA can be one of many tools used to explore Network First ideas in practice.
Is the Network First Manifesto connected to a particular company or product?
The Manifesto is intended to be an open community rather than a commercial product or traditional corporate initiative. Members come from different organizations, disciplines, and backgrounds and participate in their own capacity.
Can my organization participate?
Yes. Organizations and individuals interested in experimenting with Network First principles can participate through pilots, research, events, collaborations, and other community-led initiatives.
Can I contribute even if I don’t have a project?
Absolutely. Contribution can take many forms: participating in conversations, sharing research or experiences, connecting people, helping another member’s initiative, attending a gathering, or simply bringing a Network First perspective into your own work.
There is no single prescribed path for participation.
Where is all of this going?
We don’t know completely—and that is intentional.
The Network First Manifesto is an evolving exploration rather than a predetermined organizational model. Its direction emerges through the questions, experiments, relationships, and projects created by the people participating in it.
The Manifesto provides a shared starting point. What emerges from that starting point belongs to the network.ing at work are continuously explored, tested, and shared in the open.